Daily Archives: August 6, 2010

… The first source said Tennessee expects to receive a letter of inquiry from the NCAA in the near future. As part of a broadened inquiry, the NCAA is expected to interview other former Vols coaches, including Kiffin, about recruiting methods at Tennessee, including the timing of coaching staff contacts with high school players, a source said.

Tennessee athletic director Mike Hamilton declined to comment on the nature of any ongoing investigation but said Friday: “It’s been publicly acknowledged that the NCAA has followed up on allegations related to our football program last fall. We have not received a letter of inquiry and can’t comment any further at this time.”

Tennessee acknowledged it committed at least six secondary violations during Kiffin’s tenure. The NCAA said the large number of secondary recruiting violations could warrant classification as a major violation.

One source said “a ton of people” have been interviewed regarding Tennessee’s recruiting methods, including recruits who signed with Tennessee to play for Kiffin.

Overrated: Florida, Texas, Virginia Tech. We listed reasons for the over-ranking of Florida and Texas. Now to the Hokies, who are at No. 6. It seems expectations are too high for the Hokies every season. Yes, they return a very talented RB duo and Tyrod Taylor at QB, but the defense only returns four starters and the schedule is brutal. This seems a bit high for a team that has averaged three losses over the past six seasons.

Overrated, Part II: Penn St. at No. 14 and LSU at No. 16. Penn St. lost lots of defense and has uncertainty at QB; LSU has a great defense, but everybody is waiting on Jordan Jefferson to step up. This was also a team picked to finish fourth in the SEC West in the preseason media poll.

Dave Plati, spokesman for the athletic department, said it was obvious that Georgia fans were the culprits in the ticket scam. The first giveaway: Some e-mail addresses used to buy tickets included terms like “UGA” or “Dogs.”

CFN has the betting lines for the first week of the season. Here are a few numbers of interest:

Georgia is a 25.5 point favorite over ULaLa (by the way, when did they start referring to themselves simply as “Louisiana”?).

Vegas thinks it’ll be a fun week for the SEC, as every team in the conference but one is favored in its opener, from ‘Bama getting 39 against San Jose State to LSU’s -1.5 against North Carolina. Vandy is the only underdog, against Northwestern.

Favored in a runaway to win the Big East, Pitt is a three-point underdog at Utah. Hmmm…

Rice is only getting 28 points against Texas? Unless the Owls’ defense is much, much better, they could be down by 28 at halftime.